tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1244833278554929982024-03-05T04:34:01.566+00:00The Write EyeA snapshot of the life of a wannabe writer working full-time.Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-83971259645435107302012-05-08T23:27:00.001+01:002012-09-24T04:11:55.046+01:00My New Blog and Website<a href="http://www.annieye.wordpress.com/">Please visit my new blog and website by clicking on this link. This blog will now be archived, but will still be available to view. </a>Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-10050438849059780672012-03-15T05:42:00.004+00:002012-03-15T06:20:01.607+00:00The White CuckooI have been reading my own book, 'The White Cuckoo' over the past couple of days. I haven't touched it for months.<br /><br />Is it really narcissistic to say I love my own book? I really, really love it. I cried twice at the end just now. It feels like I have just given birth. It is a much different feeling to when I finished the first draft in May 2009. This is what I wrote at 5.55 am on Sunday, 3rd May 2009 <a href="http://annieye.blogspot.com/2009/05/written-novel.html">(The Written Novel) </a>Since then it has been lovingly redrafted five times and it is now a 6th draft. I can now close my eyes and 'imagine' its cover. In the foreground it is the colour of grass following a rain shower, verdant green, studded with tiny daisies. In the top left hand corner, the white cuckoo is almost hidden in the branches of a misty tree, bursting with pink blossom, watching Harry and Jessie as they walk away from the reader towards a five bar gate, barely discernible in the mist of early morning.<br /><br />I can be all sentimental this morning. I will allow myself that luxury just for a few days, but I know that just like a newborn baby it will need to be nurtured and lovingly raised until it is a fresh faced toddler, ready to face the world and take its first wobbly steps on its own two feet.<br /><br />The White Cuckoo was written in just the way every novel should be written. To anyone reading this who is facing writers' block or who can't make progress with their novel, for goodness sake don't worry about anything. Write cliches, adverbs and do everything wrong. Don't stress at this stage. Just get it down and enjoy the writing. It took me a month to write the first draft. All that is wrong can be easily mended afterwards.<br /><br />There are lots of really special people who have believed in the Cuckoo. My wannabe friends, the two RNA readers, my friend Andy - who loved it despite being a bloke and my daughter, who still hasn't read it all the way through because she was beginning to get all emotional about it.<br /><br />I do love being a writer and hopefully I can post some exciting news about 'The White Cuckoo' very soon on a brand new blog. This will be my last post on this blog, but I hope some of my old friends will join me, along with some new ones I have made along the way.Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-30331345051189985032012-03-11T18:05:00.019+00:002012-03-11T18:56:52.233+00:00<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);font-size:130%;" ><b><span style=";font-family:";" >"Being </span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);font-size:130%;" >Sophie"</span><br /><br /><br /></span></b></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Ouk9T1jjNEHNE0x9oIh51SUkPLXmVuS41-6Nue-gac0Zze0Xohng4KLfkacJbVwVmNVwwWor5boWd2qyPEDLThelDbpLf7vOiD07wnzKb3H-LkVUiY1Fc9kWXra5ptkWq0DbUetYjGE/s1600/Simple_Birthday_Cake_With_Three_Candles_Royalty_Free_Clipart_Picture_090727-014603-402048.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 141px; height: 137px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Ouk9T1jjNEHNE0x9oIh51SUkPLXmVuS41-6Nue-gac0Zze0Xohng4KLfkacJbVwVmNVwwWor5boWd2qyPEDLThelDbpLf7vOiD07wnzKb3H-LkVUiY1Fc9kWXra5ptkWq0DbUetYjGE/s320/Simple_Birthday_Cake_With_Three_Candles_Royalty_Free_Clipart_Picture_090727-014603-402048.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718707066400395506" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Thre</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >e birthday candles on a cake made by mum.</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >A birthday filled with laughter and fun.</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >But who do I see, peeping round the door?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Princess Zelda – "Oh no, she's not F</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >OUR!"</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCavBMUMHuiDAnzi4hhVSnNGXZwbMFVAFHMedlr7aJSyB94_W45wGIrT9VKLWk3tPVsCcSEebe4EpYNjNdJ6G3XKUjWgVEaGFQf4-g6oQSwFgo8URzdB2Oexu_JsIzOOAePLiujytw4as/s1600/PrincessZeldaArt.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCavBMUMHuiDAnzi4hhVSnNGXZwbMFVAFHMedlr7aJSyB94_W45wGIrT9VKLWk3tPVsCcSEebe4EpYNjNdJ6G3XKUjWgVEaGFQf4-g6oQSwFgo8URzdB2Oexu_JsIzOOAePLiujytw4as/s320/PrincessZeldaArt.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718707360530936898" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >The trouble is, Zelda has got it wrong;</span></b></span><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >This gro</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >wn-up girl is too tall and strong!</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >"Princess Zelda – Go away!</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >You were supposed to come on Sophie's FOURTH birthday."</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Ah, that's bett</span></b></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueFGg9RBO4kAV2FPODPx5mlcHwJHdqtxQuJslDfPCXJtX7QrWx4WsVG7ijmIgtq6N143U5fhtiSLnXWB3QP2RP0WPWbBj8Zjc_AuOtXoVKnh5Ge3JF2k_ChoVxY2CTyGTQMB6EObMLb8/s1600/Peter-Rabbit1.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 127px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueFGg9RBO4kAV2FPODPx5mlcHwJHdqtxQuJslDfPCXJtX7QrWx4WsVG7ijmIgtq6N143U5fhtiSLnXWB3QP2RP0WPWbBj8Zjc_AuOtXoVKnh5Ge3JF2k_ChoVxY2CTyGTQMB6EObMLb8/s320/Peter-Rabbit1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718707847515225202" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >er, but now Peter Rabbit is here,</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Hop</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >ping around drinking Grandad's beer.<br /></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >"Oh no, Peter, you had better go quick<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Or Gran</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >dad will shout at Uncle Nick!"</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Now, who is that I can see with the pretty hair?</span></b></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuYCu67lFwvu9JPu1GrxNGsDfY4L22PeyJlcKwu5AMIsjKT3Kf_KJKbwyImLMuG3LDw-v_d1TtzA3PlzPTw2rzRaZsqyTrEDHxce_QrXoeMyFGsrix7wrI_cyZG6jKInJRbz_JQqojns/s1600/cinderella_and_prince.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 156px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuYCu67lFwvu9JPu1GrxNGsDfY4L22PeyJlcKwu5AMIsjKT3Kf_KJKbwyImLMuG3LDw-v_d1TtzA3PlzPTw2rzRaZsqyTrEDHxce_QrXoeMyFGsrix7wrI_cyZG6jKInJRbz_JQqojns/s320/cinderella_and_prince.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718709796125059474" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >It's Cinderella, with the Prince – the soppy pair!</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >He's a naughty Prince to be so fruity</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >As to kiss Cinderella after waking the Sleeping Beauty!</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrJ1uC5ymwerLwDgPGT8ke3FlPTo-RjNd0yEe_ZA7wLftghmQqJxy_-7ztERGaq63SjS1t0SlBT1kuncoqBGs0jzwPaS_R0YpENXyy8QIe6Sw2acmll_NaxYnK9DMbSn1G1N-syiK0ao/s1600/happy+birthday+singing.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 149px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrJ1uC5ymwerLwDgPGT8ke3FlPTo-RjNd0yEe_ZA7wLftghmQqJxy_-7ztERGaq63SjS1t0SlBT1kuncoqBGs0jzwPaS_R0YpENXyy8QIe6Sw2acmll_NaxYnK9DMbSn1G1N-syiK0ao/s320/happy+birthday+singing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718710155592940962" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -27pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Is ANYONE coming to see Sophie Rose?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm -17.85pt 0.0001pt -27pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >With lots of presents and pretty new clothes?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -27pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >It's all going horribly wrong</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -27pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >At this rate, all she will get is a birthd</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >ay song</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZKjNE1u-GIRzGqPMqDJlW3W5BI_54dO6svRNhZVjoU19zKFD00IH74PKNtwLVBb51YndGYW28wnG9uoWcgrtpOJtaQOg6Bod_zFft76TMCMfKpurMQJcUkteI5fDCIQBrmVo3J0FDC9c/s1600/hoolie2.gif"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 128px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZKjNE1u-GIRzGqPMqDJlW3W5BI_54dO6svRNhZVjoU19zKFD00IH74PKNtwLVBb51YndGYW28wnG9uoWcgrtpOJtaQOg6Bod_zFft76TMCMfKpurMQJcUkteI5fDCIQBrmVo3J0FDC9c/s320/hoolie2.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718710666531440658" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >"Hello, Miss Hoolie, have you a story?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >What? There's a problem in Balamory?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Oh no! So sorry you will have to ru</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >sh</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Back to Spencer, and his lost paintbrush."</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -18pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >"Oh hi! Come on in, Miss P</span></b></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlHSJ765OZ2VOYwFhCzt44CeblUb7dEC-khWp-pLmA26OkQceb207Bmo650c101aCdVFb_n__0MIBvtGm_-0hyN5UXY-kEK0BlRS57A1XJpWqe7vkSQu8lY9vcRLq0ZmVZLjpQwELjaQE/s1600/large_size_Peppa_Pig_002.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 191px; height: 108px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlHSJ765OZ2VOYwFhCzt44CeblUb7dEC-khWp-pLmA26OkQceb207Bmo650c101aCdVFb_n__0MIBvtGm_-0hyN5UXY-kEK0BlRS57A1XJpWqe7vkSQu8lY9vcRLq0ZmVZLjpQwELjaQE/s320/large_size_Peppa_Pig_002.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718711172779599634" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >eppa Pig.</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -18pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >How nice to see you an</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >d George, all round and big.</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -18pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >No! Don't be so greedy and eat all the cake,</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -18pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >And give yourselves a stomach ache."</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8eRgU71AJcSvx-PaSYiUMEo-aoMbQDGBdCXEbqiN2dGfkt4g2eunG4vhjXbfkfksfqjGhQ-eXnoBMrXGHPpOyugtCt4RWhtmmmVWUvR__MwU5W7L7cWBa_p0-yrazJBfmQHWUdnTqdpE/s1600/hello_kitty_summer_kitty.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 131px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8eRgU71AJcSvx-PaSYiUMEo-aoMbQDGBdCXEbqiN2dGfkt4g2eunG4vhjXbfkfksfqjGhQ-eXnoBMrXGHPpOyugtCt4RWhtmmmVWUvR__MwU5W7L7cWBa_p0-yrazJBfmQHWUdnTqdpE/s320/hello_kitty_summer_kitty.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718711524075129634" border="0" /></a></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Look, Sophie, who is this looking very pretty?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >WOW, IT'S ONLY HELLO KITTY!</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >Bringing love and happiness now you are THREE</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >From the Ireson-Vaughan-Smiths – your family!</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;" align="right"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;" align="right"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >© Annie Ireson</span></b></span></p> <div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >11th March 2012</span></b></span></div>Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-50665512385610163732012-03-08T06:02:00.003+00:002012-03-08T06:28:58.307+00:00New Beginnings<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">This is the first post on The Write Eye for a long time. Today I feel I can finally call myself an author, because one of my short stories 'A squared plus B squared equals C squared' is going to be published in a charity anthology called Telling Tales. I feel privileged to be part of something so worthwhile. The book is being published by a brand new publishing company, Moonworks Publishing, and will soon be available as an ebook. Make sure you buy a copy because all proceeds will be going to the Norfolk Hospice.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">Writers for Welfare, the group of writers responsible for 'Telling Tales' are all fabulous people. I am sure you will be hearing more of us in the future, because there is already talk of another anthology, as there has been lots of interest already.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Here is another of my short stories which was also published in an anthology four years ago. I hope you enjoy it. The formatting is a bit dodgy, but I'll play around with it later when I have more time.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hypnolove</span></span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">Ty considered himself to be an incredibly patient man –<span style=""> </span>as long as he got his own way in the end.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">His elaborate plan for the seduction of Eloise began when he came across an advert in "Alternative Experiences", a magazine he had picked up in the dentist's waiting room.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><i><span style="font-family:Arial;">"If you long for an amazing relationship then it’s down to YOU!<span style=""> </span>Learn how to radiate brilliance, talent and irresistible sex appeal.<span style=""> </span>Let Aamori</span></i><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;" > <i>show you how to release your inhibitions and titivate</i>,<i> tantalise and tempt through her unique course, Hypnolove. </i></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><i><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;" >Anything is possible, including long-term loving and a satisfying intimate relationship. You’ll be irresistible after Aamori has finished with you!<span style=""> </span>Can you afford not to sign up for Hypnolove?<span style=""> </span></span></i></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Finding himself alone in the waiting room, Ty wasted no time in tearing out the page, before furtively stuffing it into the pocket of his raincoat.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Sitting in the dentist's chair, he formulated a plan.<span style=""> </span>Eloise was tall, willowy and had the sculpted, perfect looks of a supermodel.<span style=""> </span>She was everything he had ever wanted and more.<span style=""> </span>Even better, she lived in the flat next door, so he wouldn't have to spend much of his hard-earned cash wooing her.<span style=""> </span>Fish and chips and a couple of cans of lager should do it, he’d thought.<span style=""> </span>But that was before he’d read Aamori’s Hypnolove.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >A week later, the course arrived, encased within a smart, glossy, bright red wallet embossed with a silvery Hypnolove logo.<span style=""> </span>It had been expensive, but Ty reckoned Eloise was worth it.<span style=""> </span>He might even get half his money back, he thought, if he flogged it down the pub, once his mission had been accomplished.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Sweeping takeaway cartons, beer cans and empty cigarette packets to one side on his coffee table, he spread the contents of the glossy folder out on the sticky surface.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Soon, a fog of cigarette smoke mingled with a stale smell of chips in Ty’s flat. He felt a sudden tingle of excitement in his lower regions when he thought of Eloise, probably languishing in an exotic bath full of bubbles only about twenty feet away from him through the dividing wall.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >There was a section on personal hygiene and grooming.<span style=""> </span>Ty sniffed his armpit, wrinkled his nose and discarded it.<span style=""> </span>He’d look at that chapter a bit nearer the time, he reckoned.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;" align="center"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >*****</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >The following weekend, Ty was keen to try out some of the techniques he had learned in the Hypnolove course.<span style=""> </span>Pulling on an almost-clean pair of jeans and crumpled tee-shirt from his bedroom floor, he glanced in the mirror before he left the flat.<span style=""> </span>He could do with a shave and a haircut, but he wanted to get to the coffee shop in the town centre before it became too crowded.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >The café was bustling with people when Ty walked in, his hands casually stuffed into his pockets.<span style=""> </span>He scanned the room for a likely candidate.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Paulette glanced up from her newspaper momentarily as she spotted a scruffy man walking towards her with a mug of cappuccino in one hand and slab of carrot cake in the other.<span style=""> </span>She hoped he wasn’t going to ask if she minded him sitting at her table.<span style=""> </span>Averting her eyes, she held up the newspaper, turned away slightly and crossed her legs.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >“Excuse me.<span style=""> </span>Would you mind if I sat here?”</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Paulette shrugged as if unconcerned.<span style=""> </span>“Feel free.”</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Pretending to be engrossed in an advertisement for a cure for bunions, she looked warily at the man out of the corner of her eye.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >“It’s a lovely day,” Ty smiled directly at her. “Mild for the time of year, don’t you think?”</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Paulette mumbled a polite acknowledgement, making an exaggerated gesture of pretending to push her glasses further up her nose before returning her attention to the advertisement. </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Ty sat down and crossed his legs, mirroring Paulette.<span style=""> </span>She picked up her coffee and took a sip.<span style=""> </span>Ty did the same, a forced, contrived smile painted on his face.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Paulette began to feel uncomfortable and embarrassed.<span style=""> </span>She put her cup down and fidgeted.<span style=""> </span>Ty did the same.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >After a minute or so, Paulette uncrossed her legs.<span style=""> </span>Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Ty had uncrossed his legs too.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Paulette looked around her.<span style=""> </span>The coffee shop was becoming busier, with milling shoppers, piles of carrier bags beside chairs and children’s buggies blocking her way to the door.<span style=""> </span>She picked up her sandwich, and took a bite.<span style=""> </span>Feeling annoyed at the intrusion into her personal space, she just wanted to leave the cafe and be on her way.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Ty picked up his carrot cake and took a bite.<span style=""> </span>He grinned at her again with his mouth full.<span style=""> </span>Paulette put her sandwich down.<span style=""> </span>It was no good … she’d just have to leave it.<span style=""> </span>She pushed the plate away slightly.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >To her amazement, Ty put his cake down and pushed his plate away too. Feeling a growing heat beneath her collar, Paulette scratched her neck.<span style=""> </span>Ty scratched his neck too.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Paulette snapped.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >“What the hell are you playing at!”<span style=""> </span>“</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >She always relished her few minutes of solitude with the morning paper before facing the crowds on a Saturday mornings, and now this stupid man had ruined it.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >“Every time I move – you move. Are you some sort of idiot?<span style=""> </span>I don’t know what game you’re playing, but if I were you I’d stop it right now!”</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Ty flushed a deep red, jumped up and fled from the coffee shop, leaving his cappuccino and carrot cake on the table and an irate, but bemused middle-aged woman wondering what on earth was going on.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;" align="center"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >*****</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">Back in the sanctuary of his flat, Ty picked up the glossy red folder and pulled out the section on “mirroring”.<span style=""> </span>He frowned, concentrating on the instructions.<span style=""> </span>He was sure he’d followed them to the letter.<span style=""> </span>It was then he spotted the postscript.<span style=""> </span></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><i><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >“Be absolutely sure to allow at least forty-five seconds before you mirror someone’s actions.<span style=""> </span>If not, it will have the opposite effect and you will make a fool of yourself.”</span></i></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Ty put his head in his hands.<span style=""> </span>He was such an idiot.<span style=""> </span>How on earth was he going to attract a woman if he couldn’t even read the instructions properly.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >That afternoon Eloise went out.<span style=""> </span>Ty watched her walk, swaying rhythmically down the street, as her high heels clicked on the pavement.<span style=""> </span>He felt depressed and a failure… and it wasn’t Aamori’s fault either.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >He looked around his grubby, untidy and …quite frankly … disgusting, home.<span style=""> </span>He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.<span style=""> </span>Unshaven and unkempt he saw himself through new eyes.<span style=""> </span><i>Attention to detail</i>, he thought.<span style=""> </span><i>I must pay more attention to detail.</i></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">Over the weeks that followed he went for a haircut; bought new clothes; tidied <span style=""> </span>and redecorated his flat; stopped smoking; lost weight; learned how to discover his inner self and light his inner fire and, above all, he acquired manners for the first time in his life.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Cultivating a polite friendship with the mysterious Eloise, he'd even invited her into his tidy, newly decorated flat for coffee. She'd declined, saying that sadly she was stacked out with work at the moment.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >"Perhaps another time, Ty," she had said, but he could see that there was a genuine regret, and she had narrowed her eyes slightly with a brief alluring smile.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">Quite by chance, he discovered Eloise’s birthday.<span style=""> </span>A junk mail envelope had been delivered to his flat by mistake, and he’d opened it without realising.<span style=""> </span>It was a voucher for free chocolates.<span style=""> </span></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><i><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >“Happy birthday from Shop and Save.<span style=""> </span>Please accept this gift with our compliments for your birthday on 24<sup>th</sup> October.”</span></i></strong><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" ></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >The next time he saw Eloise in the lobby he apologised, explaining that he’d opened mail addressed to her by mistake, and that he’d pop it in her letterbox later.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t notice the sexy look she gave him, hand on the banister and one slender leg on the first step of the stairs, because he was busy helping a mother with two children, a buggy and several heavy shopping bags into the lift.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Ty’s new image, his immaculate flat and improved confidence had begun to have an effect on everyone around him.<span style=""> </span>At work, it hadn’t gone unnoticed that, at last, he appeared to be shaping up and people began to talk to him more as he earned trust and respect from his supervisor and colleagues.<span style=""> </span>At home, he’d become an active member of the residents’ association and had made friends with many of the tenants in the block.<span style=""> </span>In fact, these days, Ty had quite a social life </span></strong><strong>-</strong><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" > he always seemed to be out and about somewhere and, quite frankly, practising the exercises in the Hypnolove course was becoming a bit of a bind.<span style=""> </span>He felt as if he was revising for an exam.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >Twenty-fourth of October was, thankfully, a Saturday which gave him plenty of time to get ready.<span style=""> </span>Ty waited impatiently for the delivery of twenty-four deep ruby-red roses that he had ordered to be delivered to his flat.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >That evening, Ty stood outside Eloise's front door with the bouquet.<span style=""> </span>A waft of aftershave filled the hallway as he smoothed down his new jacket. His hair was combed and gelled to perfection and his head was filled with Aamori's techniques for the perfect seduction.<span style=""> </span>He felt a tingle of excitement and shivered slightly as he knocked on the door.<span style=""> </span>It was time. He knew he was more than ready for the grand finale.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >After a few seconds Eloise appeared.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >"Well, hello Ty," she said in a husky, sexy voice. "What a lovely surprise."</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >He thrust the roses into her hand, but the words <i>“Happy Birthday, Eloise </i></span></strong><strong><span style="font-style: italic;">-</span></strong><strong><i><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" > you look amazing”<span style=""> </span></span></i></strong><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >faded away when, distracted, he spotted hundreds of red glossy folders stacked high in the passageway to her flat, every one of them embossed with the silver Hypnolove logo.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;" align="center"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;font-family:Arial;color:black;" >*****</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="line-height: normal;">Ty did spend part of the evening with Eloise, but he didn’t carry out his elaborate plan.<span style=""> </span>Somehow, the folders stacked in the passage had dampened his fire, but sharpened his inner self.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">After a cup of coffee and half an hour of polite conversation, Ty made an excuse and left, leaving a disappointed Eloise and a bunch of wilting roses.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;" align="center"><span style="font-family:Arial;">*****</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">Six months later, Ty left his flat.<span style=""> </span>He felt sad to be going, because he had made so many friends, but he was leaving for a good reason: he had bought a house with his girlfriend, Claire.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">Ty and Claire shut the door to Ty’s flat for the last time.<span style=""> </span>They walked down the stairs together, hand in hand, love sparkling around them in a haze of happiness.<span style=""> </span>When they reached the outer door, the curtains to one of the first floor flats moved slightly.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;">Eloise watched, rivulets of mascara running down her face with the tears of unrequited love, as Ty disposed of a final bag of rubbish in the communal refuse bin, a corner of a glossy red folder just visible as he walked away and out of her life.</span></p>Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-15882950090935913782010-08-24T04:22:00.003+01:002010-08-24T04:54:44.694+01:00Dear BlogFirstly, I must apologise for my neglect. It's been four months since I paid you any attention. (A bit like the houseplants on my kitchen windowsill.) You are pale, naked and devoid of colour, but never mind, like a trusty friend I knew you were always there, waiting to help me back on my feet again.<br /><br />Having teased the loose threads around the edges of Twitter for the past couple of weeks, it has sort of made me realise that instead of lurking in the relative comfort of my private, and mostly secret, laptop files, I should really be trying to coax back my writing confidence by getting some words out into the www. I am sorry for using you in this way. Perhaps in a couple of weeks you might get some really interesting posts to drape around your neck or hang off your earlobes.<br /><br />So, I have finally subbed a short story to a women's magazine. It's called 'AC will if PE will' and it's new, written over the course of two night time sessions and buffed and polished during a third. I'll let you know when it gets rejected. Actually, writing the story put some warmth into my frozen writing bones and has given me ideas for another. It might never see the light of day (like the 300+ other short pieces of writing in my files) but hey ho - why not give it a chance, eh?<br /><br />I've also sent out the Cuckoo to three, very nice-sounding agents, having waited a bit too long for one agent to get back to me. It is still cross-genre, though, so probably a bit out of the comfort zone for potential publishers. I keep reading the two lovely RNA reports, which reinforce my belief in the structure of the novel. If the RNA readers both liked it then there is at least a small chance someone else will. I want to be different. This means I probably won't get published because 'different' seems to be a bit dodgy.<br /><br />Sunlight and the other two books in the trilogy have been shelved for the time being, whilst I concentrate on Novel No. 5.<br /><br />So there you have it, dear blog. I'll be in touch again soon. Take care.<br /><br />Love from Annie<br />xAnnieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-6921558984180060052010-04-05T10:24:00.002+01:002010-04-05T10:56:16.417+01:00The Closed Door of OpportunityThere's little doubt that education is going to be a big issue in the forthcoming General Election, and I don't doubt that everyone's aspirations for our country's children's and grandchildren's future are in complete accord. As for teachers' workloads, I have seen with my own eyes the heart-wrenching struggles of a dedicated teacher who is also a parent, and witnessed the stress teachers are under to perform when the performance is based on the unpredictability of childrens' progress.<br /><br />Any parent of grown-up children will tell you: they are <span style="font-weight: bold;">all </span>different and reach the recognised milestones at different times in their lives. One child will walk unaided at 10 months; another not until 18 months. One child will chatter away at 15 months and another will not utter a single word until they are nearly two. This developmental unpredictability continues well into the teens and even beyond. What about the pensioners who go back to college and study for degrees? And the 50 year old who finally decides she is going into teaching?<br /><br />My heart sank when I read in the news yesterday that children may be assessed at fourteen and forced to make choices as to whether they want to go down the 'technical' route or the 'academic' route. I think its a brilliant idea to prepare young people for a career other than one which is the product of a university education and the inevitable burden of a huge debt to pay for it, but it shouldn't be at the expense of those young people who find, in their late teens, they have made a mistake. <span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><br />My own door of opportunity was closed and locked when I was eleven. Fortunately, I was handed the key to open it when I was accepted into a 'technical college' at 15, where I got those all-important 'O'levels and some other qualifications which helped me get a foothold in an (eventually) well-paid and rewarding career. But I was lucky - lots of my classmates at the secondary modern school I attended weren't so fortunate and, despite being perfectly capable of much higher levels of achievement, were railroaded into factory and shop jobs where their doors of opportunity were not only locked, but bricked over.<br /><br />I would urge anyone who eventually holds the key to children's future not to create another generation of 'failures'. As a grandparent I want the very best for my grandchildren's future - whether it be 'technical' or 'academic', but above all I want them to be happy in whichever route they eventually choose for themselves.<br /><br />I just hope the politicians listen to all the parents and grandparents, who really do understand the unpredictability of a child's educational progress.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Writing Progress</span></span><br /><br />I'm still waiting for a response from JM about 'Sunlight'. I have just finished a radical rewrite of the second book in the trilogy (Melody of Raindrops) and now I'm going to have some fun with 'Horns of Angels' and just write, write, write and worry about plots, structures and the rules of writing another day. I'll go back to 'Melody' in a few weeks and give it an edit, but for now I'm going to enjoy myself and write whatever I like!Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-65385863661685050162010-01-29T08:19:00.003+00:002010-01-29T09:23:44.826+00:00The Dysfunctional Synapses of a WriterI'm just coming to the end of a very busy January - both work-wise and at home. I haven't managed much writing because I've been too tired to get up at 4.00 am most days.<br /><br />Last weekend was manic. It was all my own fault: I should never have booked to take my grandchildren to see Aladdin on the same weekend I had to work on a Sunday on the Holocaust Memorial Day service put on by the Council. It was all a bit too much for a fifty-something body in a thirty-something mind.<br /><br />In the early hours of Sunday morning I had a dream and it went like this:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I open my eyes and they fall on my mum's old nursing chair which occupies prime position in my bedroom in the corner of the bay window. She's sitting in the chair with my crazy Jack Russell, Sam, on her lap.<br /><br />'Sam!' I yell as I jump out of bed, what are you doing here. You are supposed to be dead.'<br /><br />Sam jumps into my arms, licking me all over my face, squirming and squeaking with excitement. I can feel his stumpy little tail wagging on my forearm.<br /><br />'My mum stands up. 'That's just typical of you, Anne,' she says. 'I haven't seen you for three years and all you can do is make a fuss of the dog!'<br /><br />I put my arm around my little, dumpy mum and give her a hug. 'Rob,' I shout. 'Wake up. Sam's come to see us with Mum'<br /><br />'That's not Rob,' says my mum. 'This is not your house.'<br /><br />'Yes it is,' I begin to argue, but mum interrupts me shaking her head in frustration.<br /><br />'It's no good me trying to explain,' she says. 'You never listen to a word I say. You never did.'<br /><br />I know Mum's not annoyed with me really because she is smiling and biting her lip, trying not to laugh at me struggling to keep hold of the canine contortionist in my arms. I see her eyes glint with tears of happiness and want to tell her how much I've missed her, but don't.<br /><br />I suddenly get very frightened and sweep back the vertical blinds to look out of the window. There's a grey car slewed across our driveway. Two young women are standing in the road, arguing loudly. The car engine is running, punctuating the usual quietness of our little road with the heavy breathing of a diesel engine. A man jumps out, leaving the door open. He grabs one of the girls and shoves her in the car. Her shoe falls off and he picks it up and throws it at her. There is a second or two of teenage hysteria inside the car, before the man slams it shut and it roars off at great speed into the night.<br /><br />I wake up. In bed. I turn over and go back to sleep.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span>On Sunday morning I woke up. I asked Rob if he heard Technoson come in and he said he had. About 2.30 am, apparently. (He also said we had a visitor - Technoson had brought a friend home.)<br /><br />I told Rob straight away about my dream and he said I'd been eating too much cheese. We had a little conversation about Jack Russells and almost had an argument because I want another 'Sam', but unfortunately Sam had only one master - me - and was possessive to the point of obsession and pleased himself for the vast majority of his long, yappy-happy life.<br /><br />And that, folks, was that. Until last night when, in one of our rare conversational moments this week, caused entirely by Kettering Borough Council completely devouring every second of my life apart from when I've been in bed, asleep, Rob and I caught up with each other. This is what <span style="font-weight: bold;">really</span> happened on Saturday night/Sunday morning.<br /><br />A new family moved into a house at the end of our road about six months ago. They have a fifteen-year old daughter. Mummy and Daddy decided that their little cherub was old enough to be left while they had a much needed weekend break. At about 2.00 am a worried J, who lives next door and had crept into the back garden in his jim-jams to investigate the wild party that appeared to be going on, decided that there was no other option but to ring his neighbours on their mobile phone. I don't think I need to explain what happened next. Around 60 15/16 year olds were unceremoniously chucked out when a furious G and his wife arrived home, their special weekend (and their newly decorated house) completely ruined.<br /><br />Apparently, livid parents were all over Barton Seagrave collecting their variously scattered offspring - and yes, according to Technoson there really was a grey car parked across our driveway, and yes, a grumpy father really did chuck his daughter into his car ......<br /><br />It's actually quite worrying that your brain can get quite so mixed up.<br /><br />Ooo -errrrr ......<br /><br />Anyway - I really should get to work. Two more days of craziness and then I can, perhaps, take a day off.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-7096631371797688822010-01-05T05:57:00.002+00:002010-01-05T06:47:22.679+00:00Silver Linings and Frayed EdgesI always try to look for silver linings, both in people and in situations. Even the grumpiest, lugubrious of people must have something that tickles their fancy - or perhaps not!<br /><br />For the last two years I've concentrated on my novels - I've still written the odd short story, but not subbed anything anywhere, apart from 'The Yellow Balloon' (which was accepted by My Weekly 18 months but not yet published), 'Hypnolove' which was published in an anthology, and a couple of other random short stories which were rejected.<br /><br />I have decisions to make about my writing - two different agents have now said that I am a better saga writer than a writer of the contemporary stuff. Two unconnected professional people - two identical conclusions. The thing is, I <span style="font-style: italic;">loved </span>writing The White Cuckoo. It was written straight from my heart. It is special and precious and it feels like I want to protect it, like a mother would a child.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed writing the sagas, too, but I was helped by a walking encyclopedia of memories of the 20s and 30s and didn't have to do much research other than sit and talk to my Great Aunt, who sadly is no longer with us.<br /><br />The White Cuckoo is a contemporary women's fiction, with the back story set in 1910. My gut feeling is that it works as it is (and both the first and second RNA readers seemed to have the same view, so I can't be completely out of step, can I?) One of my local readers said she felt like writing to the agents I had approached to tell them how much she loved the story and that it was refreshing to have a main character she could actually identify herself with and root for, instead of reading about criminals, misery and doom and gloom all the time. Now two agents, completely unconnected, have suggested I write the 1910 story as a family saga. The whole point of the Cuckoo is the subtle strands of connectivity between two women - one who lived in 1910 and the other who is trying to sort out the tangled mess in her life in the here and now. If I could liken the novel to a diagram, it would be like the geometry of a sphere-shaped object, with everything connected and the formulae all adding up, but with tangents and parallels going off in all directions, sometimes hidden from view, but there all the same for the reader to discover.<br /><br />If I re-write the 1910 part of the story as a complete novel, I feel I will be stealing the soul from The White Cuckoo and selling it to the devil.<br /><br />One agent said that people don't want to read about your average 27 year old woman who drinks lattes, has a well-paid job and sports car and who travels half way across the country to find her estranged sister and then falls in love with a Civil Engineer. Why? I'm so confused.<br /><br />There must be thousands of young women who have good jobs, a sports car and fancy the pants off a Civil Engineer. Not everyone is destitute, hard-up and living in a squat and being gang-raped by psychopathic handgun-wielding, granny-mugging thugs.<br /><br />JM, the agent who has been trying to sell the trilogy of sagas, has suggested that I re-write my first novel 'Sunlight on Broken Glass' to make it grittier - to make the heroine really suffer, but to tone down Tom (see previous post) because publishers she approached felt his behaviour is a bit near the knuckle. I think I would rather do this than rip the heart out of the Cuckoo.<br /><br />Is it really such a mortal sin for a new writer to write a book that is cross-genre - like The White Cuckoo. Apparently you can get away with it when you have a few published novels under your belt, but a new writer? No, no no!<br /><br />Anyway, despite being a little frayed around the edges, I have decided to tinker around with 'Sunlight' and let the 'Cuckoo' rest for a while. I just can't bring myself to dismantle this work of art that, I, alone, have created - it was for me and it is precious to me. I'm not going to let it go. I don't have to, do I?<br /><br />In the meantime, I'll fray myself around the edges a little more by sticking my toe into the muddy water of short story submissions, and I might tinker around with the NaNo novel and see if I can turn it into a pocket novel (using the very successful, Sally Q's helpful guidelines on her blog).<br /><br />Right - when I get my first short story rejection, can someone please remind me that it's just a hobby, it's supposed to be enjoyment and that all writers have to deal with rejections.<br /><br />Perhaps my frayed edges will have a silver lining, after all? Who knows.<br /><br />Anyway, a Happy and successful 2010 to anyone reading this post by a very frayed and frazzled Annie.Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-81275632192435192902010-01-01T18:25:00.005+00:002010-01-01T21:11:05.521+00:00Blog Takeover Day<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:/Users/Anne/AppData/Local/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Arial; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} p.MsoBodyText, li.MsoBodyText, div.MsoBodyText {margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:200%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Arial; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB; font-style:italic;} p.MsoBodyTextIndent, li.MsoBodyTextIndent, div.MsoBodyTextIndent {margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-indent:36.0pt; line-height:200%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Arial; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB;} p.MsoBodyTextIndent2, li.MsoBodyTextIndent2, div.MsoBodyTextIndent2 {margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-indent:36.0pt; line-height:200%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Arial; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB; font-style:italic;} @page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" ></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style=""><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">THOMAS FRISBY JEFFSON (1878-1971)</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style=""><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>
<br /></span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Annie has tried her best to tell my story, but we have to face facts. She's been trying to get a novel published for nearly two years now and ... between you and me and the computer mouse ... she need to try a darned sight harder and stop messing around. I know publishers don't like me because I'm such a nasty piece of work, but there is a reason. I have a secret - a skeleton in my closet - and I'd like to share it with you.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Hey …. don’t go away!.<span style=""> </span>Please stay and listen to what I have to say.<span style=""> </span>I know it doesn’t sound too good, so far, but there is a reason I am such such a horrible character. It isn't all my fault, you know!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;font-family:arial;"><span style="display: none;">a<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="display: none;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="display: none;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:85%;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:85%;" >When I was sixteen, I wasn't a bad lad. B</span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:85%;" >elieve me, I behaved myself and had ambitions. I respected my elderly aunt and uncle because I was grateful to them for giving me a new start in life when they rescued me from my sadistic, cruel mother and took me in.<span style=""> </span>So, I suppose you are wondering where it all went wrong?<span style=""> </span>This is where you hear my true story because I swear that I've never told a living soul about the dreadful thing that happened to me.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The year before I moved in with my aunt and uncle, a new family had arrived in the village and rented the cottage next door to them. Young Jack was my age and we became really good friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">His mother, Mary, always made me welcome in their home.<span style=""> </span>It was a lovely, wafty-walled thatched cottage with nice furniture and always very clean and tidy. She told me that she admired how I had tried to better myself and complimented me on my neat clothes and highly polished boots.<span style=""> </span>Mary was well respected in the village and a regular churchgoer. She was also a very beautiful woman and turned heads wherever she went.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">After a while I started to go to church and join in all the activities.<span style=""> </span>I liked being around Mary because she was always so interested in me </span><span style="font-size:85%;">-</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> I wasn’t just the lad who lived next door.<span style=""> </span>Young Jack and I joined the village cricket team and life was good. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">I was having the time of my life after my miserable childhood.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Mary had married her husband, Old Jack, when she was very young and, although their marriage seemed strong, she often used to confide in me that she felt her best years had slipped away without her noticing. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style=""> </span>I was really wet behind the ears when I was sixteen!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: 0cm; line-height: normal;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Don't ask me to define the moment I fell in love.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">I always had a big crush on Mary, but I never let it show.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">I think most young lads about that age tend to get all fanciful about an older woman, don't they?
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: 0cm; line-height: normal;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Anyway, it all started in a field on a warm late-August Sunday afternoon. I was collecting blackberries for my aunt to make a pie, when I heard a voice call out to me. I looked around and Mary was hurrying across the field, a radiant smile splitting her pretty face.<span style=""> </span>She was carrying a nearly full basket of blackberries.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">‘Here,’ she said to me, ‘let me put my basket down and I'll give you a hand to fill yours.’<span style=""> </span>We walked along the hedgerow, chatting away, plucking the ripe juicy fruit from the brambles.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I couldn’t take my eyes off her loose golden hair, which blew in wisps around her face and hung in waves over her narrow shoulders. She could have easily been mistaken for a woman half her age.<span style=""> </span>I caught a faint scent of perfume </span><span style="font-size:85%;">-</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> or was it fresh laundry </span><span style="font-size:85%;">-</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> as she leaned in front of me and the blue and white cotton of her dress stretched enticingly over her full breasts.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">After a few minutes of picking the ripe, juicy fruit together, I saw some particularly large berries that were right inside the hedge, just out of reach.<span style=""> </span>I leaned into the brambles to pick them. As edged my way into the hedgerow, my foot went down a rabbit hole and I lurched and fell right into the deadly thorns. A hot rasping pain gouged the skin on the back of my hand and<span style=""> </span>I cried out as I scrambled up.<span style=""> </span>The bramble must have slashed through one of the veins on the back of my hand because there was blood everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Mary and I sat down on the grass; she whipped a handkerchief out of the pocket of her dress, shook it and wound it round my hand, pressing down on the cut with my hand sandwiched between hers.<span style=""> </span>As the bleeding subsided I glanced up at her and was startled to see that she was looking straight into my eyes.<span style=""> </span>A deep desire played around the edges of her seductive smile as we stared at each other. I could hardly contain my excitement. My heart pounded. All I could hear was the sound of her breathing and feel the warmth of her hands and thigh, which was touching mine. I was hypnotised, completely mesmerised by the smell of her, the sound of her voice and her hair tumbling over her shoulders when it should have really been pinned up, it being a Sunday.<span style=""> </span>The sight of her breasts and tiny waist made her seem youthful and vibrant, and yet her maturity and experience seemed to gush from her eyes straight into the tops of my thighs and groin.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">She stroked my bare forearm with one hand whilst holding my injured hand with the other and I thought I would be sure to explode.<span style=""> </span>She could see how excited I was and kept looking into my eyes as her free hand effortlessly left my arm and caressed the top of my thigh.<span style=""> </span>Her hand worked its way to my crotch.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="">
<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style=""> </span>‘Sorry,’ I said, after I few seconds, feeling as if I needed to apologise.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">‘Never mind,’ she said almost in a whisper as her deft hand played with the buttons on my trousers. ‘When we can be somewhere more private, I'll show you what it's all really about!’<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I looked all around to see if anyone had seen what had happened.<span style=""> </span>There were people in the field only a few yards away along the hedgerows, and some children played cricket in the meadow on the other side of the hedge.<span style=""> </span>I blushed crimson at the thought someone might have been looking, but a quick glance over my shoulder told me that everyone seemed to be minding their own business.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">She stood up and pulled me to my feet.<span style=""> </span>My face was still scarlet with embarrassment.<span style=""> </span>She said, ‘don't be ashamed, Tom, I know how you feel about me.’<span style=""> </span>Then she let go of my hand, picked up her basket and walked jauntily away across the field back to the village.<span style=""> </span>Her hips swayed rhythmically, and she tossed her head as she flicked hair out of her eyes.<span style=""> </span>She didn’t even look back at me. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">After that Sunday, I kept away from Mary for a while.<span style=""> </span>I felt guilty about the whole episode and could hardly look Young Jack in the eye because of the shame at the thought of what I had done with his mother.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">One Saturday, about a month later, my aunt and uncle went out with some other relatives.<span style=""> </span>I was at home on my own, polishing my boots and minding my own business, when Mary tapped on the front window like a jackdaw after a sparkly jewel.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I put down the boot I was polishing, stood up and stretched. I felt a rush of fear mixed with excitement as I opened the heavy, oak front door just a little, a waft of delicate perfume filling the hallway through the crack in the door.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">‘Could I trouble you to borrow a darning needle,’ she enquired, fanning her flushed face with her hand and shooting me a seductive look under her eyelashes. I opened the door fully, and politely asked her to come in. I made her wait while I turned my back on her to rummage in my aunt's needlework bag.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t look round. I deliberately didn’t encourage her in any way.<span style=""> </span>In any case, my face was red with embarrassment and I didn’t want her to notice.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">As I was hunting for a needle in the bag, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle; her eyes seemed to bore into me and my cheeks burned crimson. Just as I was about to turn around, having found what I was looking for, I stopped breathing as I felt her arms encircle my waist from behind.<span style=""> </span>I froze as she unbuttoned my shirt and caressed my bare chest.<span style=""> </span>She laid her head against my back, pressing herself erotically against my buttocks.<span style=""> </span>She was kissing the back of my neck and then licking my ear with the tip of her tongue.<span style=""> </span>It was so difficult for me, a healthy young lad with normal desires and yet knowing that any sort of liaison would be inappropriate to say the very least.<span style=""> </span>I did try to pull away </span><span style="font-size:85%;">-</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> I honestly did.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I swear to you as God is my witness, I’m telling the truth. But … well … what lad could have resisted?<span style=""> </span>I certainly couldn't. She took me by the hand and led me upstairs.<span style=""> </span>She undressed me with slow, experienced hands, before taking off every item of her own clothing.<span style=""> </span>We lay, naked, on top of the bed. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">It was my first time.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">After that Saturday, it happened about a dozen more times over the next year.<span style=""> </span>It was always Mary who seduced me.<span style=""> </span>At first I wanted it to stop and I tried to avoid her if I could, as I was so ashamed of myself.<span style=""> </span>I was terrified that people would find out, especially Young Jack, but they never did.<span style=""> </span>No one ever suspected a thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">As time went on, I fell deeply in love with Mary. Whenever we were alone I told her how I felt about her.<span style=""> </span>She told me she loved me back and was just waiting for the right time to leave her husband and for us to be together properly.<span style=""> </span>I worked like a Trojan; saving every penny I could to be able to afford a nice home for us both and to have the means to support Mary and her two youngest children.<span style=""> </span>I both dreaded, and yet lived for, the few times we could be together, consoling myself that the loneliness I felt when we were apart would be worth it eventually.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Just before I was seventeen, my aunt made a casual announcement at the dinner table one Sunday as we tucked into roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.<span style=""> </span>She said that Mary was pregnant with her fourth child.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I was stunned. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I put down my knife and fork and took a deep breath before swigging half a glass of water.<span style=""> </span>With a primitive instinct in my gut and a guilty heart tinged with pride, I knew that the child growing in her belly was probably mine.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">We passed each other in the street a few days later.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t think she was even going to acknowledge me.<span style=""> </span>I caught her arm and asked her outright if the child was mine.<span style=""> </span>She looked at me in the eye and said coldly, ‘of course it's yours, you silly little boy!<span style=""> </span>Old Jack thinks it's his and it's best kept that way. You just keep your mouth shut, or else you'll be sorry!’<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">As she walked away she looked over her shoulder at me and then stopped.<span style=""> </span>She took a step backwards and gave a condescending, unfeeling sneer. ‘Well I wanted to have another baby before it was too late, and that useless lummox couldn't give me one!’ she said<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I was panic-stricken.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I caught her arm. ‘Mary …’ I said, ‘let’s just talk about this ….’<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">She shook my hand off and left it suspended in mid air.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">‘Please?’<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I was desperate.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">She pursed her lips and shook her head, before walking away, her eyes cold and hard, staring straight ahead without even a backward glance.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">My life was a living hell after that day; but I couldn't tell anyone. I can't tell you how hurt I was. I was angry with myself, too, because I could see how stupid I had been. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">With the benefit of hindsight, I believe Mary only wanted another baby so that she could be the centre of attention. Her seduction of me was well planned and clinical.<span style=""> </span>What was easier than a beautiful woman ensnaring an impressionable sixteen-year-old lad?<span style=""> </span>She abused me and then discarded me like a bag of rubbish. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I was broken - my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">After he was born, she would walk around the village, pushing my son in an expensive new perambulator, with her hair pinned up in an elegant bun under a demure hat, swishing her full skirts as she swayed her hips, nodding her head, smiling and passing the time of day with everyone she met </span><span style="font-size:85%;">-</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> especially the men.<span style=""> </span>Her tinkling laughter was so fabricated and contrived, I wondered how I could ever have been so gullible as to be taken in by her.<span style=""> </span>I used to stand and watch, hiding behind a newspaper or bending down pretending to tie my shoelaces in a gateway. Her voice would change when she spoke to a man. Any man.<span style=""> </span>Her head would lower slightly and she would look up at them under her eyelashes; then she would hold their gaze just a second too long.<span style=""> </span>I’d wait for the trill laugh and for her to touch them gently on the arm.<span style=""> </span>They’d walk away with a spring in their step, feeling on top of the world. I knew the feeling all too well and I wanted to run after them and tell them not to be such a bloody fool.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I’d watch as she and Old Jack went to church, pushing my son in front of them in his perambulator.<span style=""> </span>She would march off on Old Jack’s arm, with her two little girls running along in front, looking for the entire world like a devout church-going pillar of the community.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">My aunt knew there was something wrong and was worried about me.<span style=""> </span>My mind was in turmoil </span><span style="font-size:85%;">-</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> all my dreams and aspirations knocked aside, worthless and redundant as the reality of the situation hit me like a runaway horse and left me bleeding and broken.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I had been well and truly used.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">To an inexperienced sixteen year old, Mary had been the perfect woman.<span style=""> </span>In the next few months I gradually came to realise that her behaviour had been ten times worse than that of my slovenly, dirty mother. In their own disparate ways they had splintered and fragmented my fragile early years, and it took me a very long time to realise that Mary's actions had not only affected me for my entire life, but had moulded me into the bitter, nasty and unfeeling person I turned into afterwards. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Frank, they called him.<span style=""> </span>I could hear his muffled cries through the wall, physically aching to hold him in my arms and be a proper father to him.<span style=""> </span>I liked his name and it is one I would have chosen myself, had I had the chance.<span style=""> </span>He was a lovely little chap, with bright blue eyes and fine blonde hair.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I can't even begin to describe to you all how much I loved him.<span style=""> </span>It was a hopeless situation.<span style=""> </span>It was like a heavy, constant ache around my heart. I cried lonely, helpless tears, night after lonely night, over the futility of the situation, knowing I could never acknowledge that perfect little boy as my son.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Occasionally, my aunt looked after baby Frank.<span style=""> </span>I felt on top of the world at such times and always willed him to wake up so that I could pick him up and hug him to me, breathing in his delicate baby smell and feeling the warmth of his body, his little heart beating against my chest.<span style=""> </span>I’d gaze into his eyes and make him chuckle with silly noises, and he would reach out to touch my nose or my mouth.<span style=""> </span>My eyes would fill with tears and I’d deliberately let them fall on his face before wiping them away.<span style=""> </span>In some perverse way I wanted him to be baptised by my tears; to somehow know how much his real father loved him and how it was tearing me apart.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I swear I can recall each and every time I held Frank.<span style=""> </span>The memories are so pure,</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> so clear in my mind. I</span><span style="font-size:85%;">t was like finding a patch of warm winter sun on a cold, bleak day whenever I thought of my precious first-born son.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I threw myself into work and cricket and worked myself into exhaustion most days so that I had little time to dwell on things. I stopped going to church, because Mary was always there, and I couldn't even bear to look at her.<span style=""> </span>To help ease the pain, I took just a little whisky to help me sleep through the night without having to hear my son living his life, disconnected from mine, through the few inches of the dividing wall.<span style=""> </span>His cries pierced through my body right into my soul.<span style=""> </span>I felt physical pain with the basic, simple need to be </span><span style="font-size:85%;">a proper father. Where’s the wrong in that?<span style=""> </span>The tot or two of whisky before I went to bed was the only bit of comfort that helped me through that awful time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">After a year or so I took up with my lovely Liz.<span style=""> </span>We married when I was nearly twenty-two.<span style=""> </span>I wanted to make a fresh start but there were two things I just couldn’t do, try as I might.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t forget my perfect son and I couldn’t give up the whisky that eased the pain of knowing that he would never know that</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> I was his real father.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I carried the scar of that hot, August Sunday afternoon on the back of my hand for the rest of my life.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> It was a permanent, constant reminder of Mary Haywood </span><span style="font-size:85%;">-</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> the woman who had stolen my innocence and damaged my heart beyond repair.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">That is why I drink. That is why I am such a horrible man. You see, Frank Hayward died of the consumption at the age of twenty-two without ever knowing how much I loved him. He died without knowing that I, Tom Jeffson, was his father.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I think Annie needs to tell her readers about my secret, don't you?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;">
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:78%;" >
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<br />Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-77333576958318256072009-11-30T18:08:00.004+00:002009-11-30T18:12:46.887+00:0050k words in a month<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5w1EW2QPciS5aTI3955b_FbqNCd6DRe7il2UsXm1oCivgzTXER4oyXpGGki9AH3gX59aLSCHUZvuiR9pqQsJf6fl9mhCzMp0748krTsty7aasxrr91eWtpc87cYk7hbdvmmA4tVTM6s4/s1600/nano_09_winner_120x240.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5w1EW2QPciS5aTI3955b_FbqNCd6DRe7il2UsXm1oCivgzTXER4oyXpGGki9AH3gX59aLSCHUZvuiR9pqQsJf6fl9mhCzMp0748krTsty7aasxrr91eWtpc87cYk7hbdvmmA4tVTM6s4/s320/nano_09_winner_120x240.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409960250942808594" border="0" /></a><br />I made it. (Novel is nowhere near complete, though). It needs a ruthless edit too.<br /><br />I loved it. It was hard at times, especially when I was busy with work, but on the whole it was very enjoyable.<br /><br />Congratulations to everyone else who did NaNoWriMo, whether you made it to 50k words or not. It's the taking part that counts, not the winning.Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-41811893794295447052009-11-26T20:01:00.006+00:002009-11-26T21:28:47.574+00:00Rocket Stickers, The Moon and Millbrook School'Granny,' said Tyler, 'I really did get a rocket sticker and now it's lost.'<br /><br />His eyes were full to the brim and his bottom lip was quivering. 'Daddy said it was just a dream, but it's not, Granny.'<br /><br />My son-in-law almost shouted at him 'Look - just get dressed - and stop being such a girl, Tyler. It's not on your sweatshirt. You've either dreamed it, or lost it on the way back from school last night.'<br /><br />'I didn't,' retaliated Tyler under his breath as he pulled on his grey, school socks. 'It said <span style="font-style: italic;">well done</span> for knowing my numbers.'<br /><br />It was 8.25 this morning before I finally began to give my eight month-old granddaughter her breakfast. With my daughter and son-in-law flapping around because they were both late for work, Tyler in a strop over the rocket sticker and Sophie doing her level best to spread porridge all over my work clothes I was beginning to panic. We needed to leave the house by 8.45 at the latest or else Tyler would be late.<br /><br />Today was just a typical weekday morning. It saddens me that, having worked so hard to get their degrees, buy a nice modest semi for their family and give their children a reasonable standard of living, the price they have to pay for their success is heavy childcare costs and a stressful, hectic lifestyle. Despite my son-in-law having a secure professional job, they still can't afford for my daughter to be a full-time mum. I feel so sorry for today's hard-working parents because they have so little choice. They have to take on a hefty mortgage to buy a house and then row their own boat in this upstream world, give up huge amounts of their salaries in taxes and then pay heavily for the privilege of rushing out to work each day - helped by an army of grandparents who had thought their school-run days were over!<br /><br />On the short walk to school, Tyler said, 'I told my teacher that you went to the moon.'<br /><br />'No,' I said. 'I haven't been to the moon - only astronauts go to the moon.'<br /><br />'You did, Granny. You said you watched the men land on the moon when you were a little girl, and your mummy told you off because it was in the middle of the night and you should have been in bed.'<br /><br />Over a year ago, we all visited the Science Museum in London. It was a throwaway comment about my memory of that night in July 1969 when men first walked on the moon. We had been looking at a replica of the luna module at the time. I couldn't believe he had remembered that far back but had to smile at the way he had taken my comment literally and had actually thought I had visited the moon in the middle of the night in some sort of magical, fairytale rocket trip.<br /><br />Going back to Millbrook School every day brings back so many memories for me. I had thought I'd feel old and out of place at the school gates, but the truth is there are loads and loads of grandparents there, just like me, saving their adult children childcare costs before they rush off to work themselves.<br /><br />Something tells me this is not progress. I think we were all better off when women stayed at home, looked after the house and children and perhaps just worked part-time while their men went out to work, mowed the lawns and cleaned the car at weekends.<br /><br />Controversial view, I know, but I'm thankful that I was, probably, one of the last generation of stay-at-home mums.<br /><br />What do you think?<br /><br />PS: We found the rocket sticker!Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-17271858542421895602009-11-21T02:43:00.013+00:002009-11-24T21:20:01.521+00:00RNA Winter Party<div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQipfnIaQbpVYMbzh0JE9ynSM6ZlIjDonVaL1GMd4DdN_tAZsW3ocgsbzshgyBg-h9ubFwmgbak0jVuFHAxvTLbeoVlY3PT4WVxO-8IzEohGXCIqqJ8k3SxRS02HXj0Ixwy6OXh8jws8s/s1600/rna1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQipfnIaQbpVYMbzh0JE9ynSM6ZlIjDonVaL1GMd4DdN_tAZsW3ocgsbzshgyBg-h9ubFwmgbak0jVuFHAxvTLbeoVlY3PT4WVxO-8IzEohGXCIqqJ8k3SxRS02HXj0Ixwy6OXh8jws8s/s320/rna1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406382394391480274" border="0" /></a>Well, first of all let me introduce you all to Emily, my incredibly supportive daughter. Without her moral support I would never have made it to the RNA winter party.<br /></div><br />I think I've mentioned before on this blog that all my life I've felt a bit disjointed. Different, quirky, odd - that sort of thing. The compulsion to drop everything I'm doing and sit down and write has been overwhelming, but my family has always thought I was a bit strange. My husband has, in the past, likened me to a secret transvestite because I kept my writing a secret. They kept it a secret. It was something not to be talked about. A skeleton in the Ireson family closet.<br /><br />Emily absolutely loved the RNA party, so much so that loads of people thought she was a writer, too. Then she said something really lovely about all of us - published or not. She said that it was such a relief to her to know that there were other people in the world like her mum. She said she felt the same quirkiness throughout the crowded room that she had been feeling all her life and she felt really at home amongst us all.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8VrxIn1cj6sbwDk_w-R9Fj3HrXjGinBrOPoDiOC4-51dAL3fu-HDo2Xd7E6e5yZJRVyxkTtRAr8H-wuQ6-DiyMUw7VQlnManmcD1h6zwufJQxmrEzQ3AFBYvL_Nf_hmiSb2t8ZLKhsZc/s1600/rna2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8VrxIn1cj6sbwDk_w-R9Fj3HrXjGinBrOPoDiOC4-51dAL3fu-HDo2Xd7E6e5yZJRVyxkTtRAr8H-wuQ6-DiyMUw7VQlnManmcD1h6zwufJQxmrEzQ3AFBYvL_Nf_hmiSb2t8ZLKhsZc/s320/rna2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406390333751108130" border="0" /></a>We met up with Jane Wenham-Jones at the party. She gave me my usual injection of confidence - several times actually - and introduced me to lots of influential people as one of her 'Wannabes'. As you can see one glass just wasn't enough for me on this occasion as I had one red wine and one white wine! I also met Cally Taylor, Leigh Forbes and Kate Johnson and was absolutely gutted to find, when I got home and looked on the website, that Liz Fenwick had been there too! It was so crowded I just hadn't come across her in the huge, awesome library and I really would have liked to speak to her. Sorry Liz - I just didn't know you were there!<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: right;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOON1pbdY6NmANE7DKj43fAsMgO1RV64SZ5l_xCvFDX4yKVvYdbYsLHQr1KBTu0kOlcHhgrv2Chax3LIf11cK3AQg_ZyVJG5bf-gOaRwUkOFRnvbJuB9RhBLgapPH5HeGu69hSJZspi2Y/s1600/rna2.jpg"><br /></a></div> </div> <div style="text-align: left;">I met people I had met before in Caerleon and others I had conversed with by e-mail or in blogland. I managed to tell Judy Astley that she had won my little sunbed poll of the most popular books when I was on holiday (a 2-week long tally chart of books being read by people on sunbeds - 1st Judy Astley, 2nd Jill Mansell, 3rd Cecilia Ahern and they all beat Martina Cole into fourth place. Judy was thrilled to bits.)<br /><br />Sue Moorcroft and her husband were there too. How on earth have we never managed to come across each other before, I ask myself? We live so close to each other we could practically chuck paper aeroplanes into each other's gardens (well - a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm talking 20 minutes walk here.) Our husbands have known each other for years and years. I like Sue. She's such a good role model. There she was, cool as anything, with 'Starting Over' sitting in WH Smith on St Pancras Station at No 4, no less, and her name on the cover and in the pages of 'Loves Me, Loves me Not'. You can't get any more successful than that, can you?<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDSspzgOBTLOeedhFOakiLDlHgQM1bkgEuGOBwEz8XvjKV-lbdseKWhzBS4j9n1VjXEBdVY1XHsL8M2pRiY2JRjHXMe195I-bdlZNIxxYN2l_LejrxUhPGS6fGEbm4LLl9rjWQTatXTnc/s1600/rna3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDSspzgOBTLOeedhFOakiLDlHgQM1bkgEuGOBwEz8XvjKV-lbdseKWhzBS4j9n1VjXEBdVY1XHsL8M2pRiY2JRjHXMe195I-bdlZNIxxYN2l_LejrxUhPGS6fGEbm4LLl9rjWQTatXTnc/s320/rna3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406398715955854690" border="0" /></a>Elizabeth Hawksley was, as ever, so supportive of me as a new writer, as was Katie Fforde and Melanie Hilton. I absolutely loved talking to Cally about 'Heaven Can Wait' and came away feeling so happy for her that she had made it through the confusion and nail-biting agony that is becoming published. I spoke to Judith M about the trilogy, which I am rewriting on her advice at the moment, but am still confused about 'The White Cuckoo'. My gut feeling tells me this book is 'the one' but Judith is not impressed with it because it isn't a saga and she feels I should be concentrating on them. The RNA are helping me to hopefully find an agent to represent the 'Cuckoo' through the New Writers' Scheme and I am greatly indebted to my two RNA readers for all the help and guidance they have given me, along with Melanie Hilton, the NWS Organiser.<br /><br />When we left, my feet hurt so badly from standing on heels (all 2 inches of them) all night, I really thought I wasn't going to make it to St Pancras. Emily's feet hurt, too, but she didn't moan about it all the way home like I did!<br /><br />We ate a bag of giant chocolate buttons and another bag of chocolate clusters coming home on the train, and bumped into a Councillor, who looked mightily bemused at the sight of the 'other me'. Annie the eccentric writer of fiction as opposed to Anne, who is a boring, staid local government officer with personality extracted by years of having to write about protocol, constitutions and standing orders.<br /><br />He e-mailed me yesterday, saying he almost didn't recognise me because I looked so different. 'You looked really happy,' he said. 'Had you been on the razz.'<br /><br />'Nuff said. Councillor, if you read this blog, now you know!<br /><br />All in all I would have to say the evening was AMAZING, but I won't because that word is beginning to annoy me intensely. Why does everyone on TV have to keep saying it all the time?<br /><br />(PS: Debs - it would have been perfect if you had been able to come, too)<br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: right;"> </div> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> </div>Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com63tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-79195075919482809942009-11-03T12:20:00.002+00:002009-11-03T12:22:26.094+00:00NaNoWriMo Day ThreeDohhh!!!!! I was at a late Council meeting last night (didn't get home until 9.45 pm). I got up at 6.30 am this morning and managed around 500 words, but now it's nearly lunchtime and I'd forgotten it was fat club today, so won't even be able to knock out another couple of hundred at lunchtime.<br /><br />Then I've got another evening meeting tonight. This is so unfair!!!!!!<br /><br />(Holds head in hands). Why oh why did I say I'd do it?Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-16751755036072398982009-11-01T21:25:00.003+00:002009-11-01T21:37:12.685+00:00Day One - NanowrimoWell, managed 2,442 words in just over two and a half hours this morning, but it was completely uninterrupted writing time as hubby - very wisely - left me alone and technoson didn't fall through the front door until 5.30 am and so was in bed in an alcohol-induced stupour until midday.<br /><br />I'm a bit concerned about tomorrow's word count (Monday). I'm at work all day and then have an evening Council meeting. I've got out of the habit of my early morning sessions, so I'm torn between going to bed now - 9.30 pm on Sunday and getting up at 4.00 am to write, or trying to write a little bit more before I go to bed.<br /><br />The novel is called 'Horns of Angels' (working title) and is set in the Lake District and Crete. I have never visited either place, although I'm sort of hoping for a fact-finding weekend in the Lake District during the re-write. I'm not holding my breath, though. Hubby is not really a weekend break sort of bloke, especially during the shooting season.Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-56006302104591958172009-10-22T07:37:00.009+01:002009-11-06T05:25:32.073+00:00NaNoWriMoThe cuckoo has taken flight again, as of this week, following an edit. I was thrilled to bits to get a second read from the <a href="http://www.rna-uk.org/index.php?page=main">RNA</a> and have had some valuable feedback from them. <br /><br />Following my holiday in August, I began work in earnest on 'The White Cuckoo', and have really put everything I've got into the rewrite. I've examined every sentence, every single word and analysed the plot, scene by scene. I've been ruthless and cut out huge chunks of text that don't either (a) move on the plot, (b) characterise or (c) add vivid imagery. I've added an equal amount of text to strengthen characters, add conflict and tension and made the whole story more 'edgy'.<br /><br />It's done now. I don't want to revise it any more. If it makes it then I shall be ecstatically happy, but while I'm waiting to find out I thought I might as well join Debs and Sally and sign up for NaNoWriMo. Probably a bit crazy of me, but I did so enjoy writing the Cuckoo, and my next novel 'Horns of Angels' (working title at the moment) is jumping around in my brain like heated popcorn and needs to be let out.<br /><br />On a lighter note, hubby went to do the shopping yesterday and found two objects: one lying on the car park and one left in a trolley in the trolley park. I always think it's a good job we don't live near the sea, or he'd become one of those long-haired ageing hippy beachcombers, wombling along the shoreline for things that might come in useful one day.<br /><br />The first object he found was a box of laxatives. The second was a rather funky little pink pen with multi-coloured inks. I'd take a photo, but I'm recovering from piggy flu and can't be bothered to get up off my backside to find the camera. He very proudly presented me with both objects when he got home, literally just minutes after I had signed up to NaNoWriMo. How very quirky and synchronised. I just hope the end result of my NaNoWriMo is not just a load of old c**p.Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-64910365972223199452009-08-20T10:21:00.004+01:002009-08-20T13:04:51.894+01:00The White Cuckoo lays another eggI have some news about the Cuckoo. Remember, it's the novel I wrote in a crazy, manic attempt to banish the writing blues during May this year? (See previous blogs).<br /><br />I have never been much of a romantic fiction reader. I prefer a good crime, or thriller - can't be doing with all this slushy romantic stuff. I used to titter at my mum's favourite books, but then secretly take them all on holiday and enjoy the feelgood reads. (Ohmigod, I've never admitted that before!)<br /><br />I think every writer should have an ideal reader sitting on their shoulder: an actual character they are writing for. With me, it's my mum. I am writing solely for her, knowing that her type of books were my grandma's, and my great aunt's. In fact, my mum's paperbacks were always well worn and passed around amongst her friends until they ended up at my house, dog-eared and tea-stained, with a <span style="font-style: italic;">'you really should read this, our Anne ... it's such a lovely story.'</span> Mum could never get to grips with Ken Follett, Jeffrey Deaver or William Boyd and I remember her throwing her hands up in horror when she saw Dennis Wheatley in all his dark glory lurking under my coffee table. She would stand at the kitchen sink, or turn around while hard at it over the ironing board, iron in hand, and tell me all about the books she was reading. She'd describe the characters, comment on their shortcomings and give her opinion on which hero was her favourite. I didn't realise at the time just how much I was taking it all in.<br /><br />I wrote 'The White Cuckoo' for my mum. I just poured my heart out and wrote a romantic novel especially for her. I wish she was here to see it.<br /><br />I submitted the Cuckoo to the Romantic Novelists' Association New Writers' Scheme a couple of weeks ago, and as my friends at work will testify, I had my tongue firmly pressed into my cheek and a cynical smile on my face on the day I posted off the manuscript.<br /><br />I heard today it's got a second reading! I'm ecstatic, to say the least. Apparently, only about ten manuscripts each year get a second reading.<br /><br />I can't believe I have actually written Romantic Fiction! <span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><br />I've learned a lesson, I think. I actually feel quite ashamed that I used to make fun of mum's favourite books. Since I've been writing seriously, I've been reading some of her favourites and I've actually got to know some of the authors through facebook and at Caerleon.<br /><br />I always imagined writers of Romantic Fiction to be all girly-girly types - belonging to a club I could never be a part of. You see, I'm not a pink, fluffy, Barbara Cartland type of woman. I hate wearing make-up. Long fingernails get on my nerves when typing, so I cut them off with scissors. I fall over in high heels, doing a fair impression of Dick Emery's 'Mandy' and want to stick my fingers down my throat at sentimental films and suchlike. I've never watched The Sound of Music, either.<br /><br />But underneath I am all woman. I must be.<br /><br />Please can someone give me some lessons?Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-60338902588801557472009-08-15T10:14:00.002+01:002009-08-15T10:50:59.790+01:00PrevaricationI think I must be in serious need of a psychiatrist. This time next week I shall be in Ibiza and I have loads still to do. I had my Saturday all planned out and this is how it went. <br /><br />1. Get up early, have a leisurely bath and then hit the town centre before the crowds. <br />2. Walk briskly past the library.<br />3. Marks & Sparks for new underwear to take on holiday.<br />4. Walk briskly past Waterstones.<br />5. Zoom into Boots for holiday toiletries.<br />6. Walk briskly past Waterstones.<br />7. Look the other way when walk past extremely tempting display of luxury choccies in Thorntons.<br />8. Walk briskly past the library<br />9. Wave to colleagues in the tourist information centre (to be polite) but not to pop in for a chat (which might appear rude)<br />10. Back home by 10 am at the very latest.<br />11. Pack cases for holiday.<br />12. Clean oven, fridge and the cupboard under the kitchen sink.<br />(Middle son is house-sitting Daughter will feel sorry for younger brother and will cook their dinner every night in my kitchen. Daughter's fridge and cooker are always much cleaner than mine. Daughter will tutt and puff and will probably put something up about my mucky oven on facebook. So you see, that is why I must clean my oven, fridge and the cupboard under the sink.)<br /><br />This is what has happened so far.<br /><br />1. Slept in until 8.45 am.<br />2. Watched BBC News while idly checking through documents in travel wallet and eating bowl of porridge.<br />3. FOUND £100 WORTH OF TRAVELLERS' CHEQUES IN TRAVEL WALLET FROM LAST YEAR - WAHEYYYYY! (Sorry, got quite excited about that)<br />4. Went on facebook to see if daughter on-line so I could tell her good news.<br />5. Just had a little browse on facebook and then read all the comments on Novel Racers<br />6. Visited Debs' blog and left a comment<br />7. Daughter rang. Spent 10 minutes or so on the phone.<br />8. Visited Mother X's blog (a bit worried about her because she sounded down the other day)<br />9. Looked to see what the temperature was in Ibiza<br />10. Logged into work e-mails and answered a couple of urgent ones (you stupid cow, Annie - it's Saturday for goodness sake!)<br />11. Visited own blog and decided to write a post about prevaricating when the ONLY day I have to get ready for holiday is today!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);">At work yesterday</span><br /><br />I made a huge, long 'to do' list of things I needed to do before I finish on Wednesday night. I made another list of things other people need to do while I'm away. I made another list of things I needed to do as soon as I get back from my hols. Made coffee. Checked e-mails for the entire week to see if I had not dealt with anything I should have done. Found one I had originally opened on Monday morning, groaned, and then shut again. Dealt with it. Offered to help someone out from another department (WHY?). Checked all room bookings for meetings while I'm away. Checked food ordered for meetings while I'm away. Replied to a thank you e-mail I'd just received regarding a meeting I had last Monday. Got one straight back. Replied. Got one back. Replied. Got one back. Replied. Got one back. Made coffee. Wrote two letters. Crossed off two things on to do list.<br /><br />Then it was lunchtime, and all I had done was written two poxy letters!<br /><br />Now it's 10.50 on the <span style="font-weight: bold;">only </span>day I have to get ready for my holiday and I'm not even dressed.<br /><br />Now, just had a great idea for Novel Number Five. Must jot it down ... otherwise I'll forget ...Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-51047617963008709522009-08-05T22:15:00.003+01:002009-08-20T10:59:55.237+01:00Things I Have Noticed About WritersI haven't a hope in hell of adding anything constructive to <a href="http://debcarrs-daydreams.blogspot.com/">Debs's brilliant review of Caerleon</a> so I thought I'd share ten of my little observations about writers - mostly gleaned during my week in Wales.<br /><br />1. All writers are extremely clumsy and drop/spill/throw/trip over/bump into things everywhere, all the time.<br />2. Writers do not appear to know left from right and have absolutely no sense of direction, wandering aimlessly through wrong corridors and getting distracted by other writers at every turn or in every doorway<br />3. Writers' bags are all very heavy - without exception<br />4. Getting food into a writer's mouth without spillage is nigh-on impossible (gravy on white skirt, beetroot on yellow top, lasagne on sleeve, superglue-like substance in hair, something white and slimy on sandal and something sticky in handbag - and that was just the first day)<br />5. Packing a case with suitable clothes is a definite no-no for a writer. A gloomy weather forecast, torrential rain and chilly temperatures ought to, by rights, equal more than one long-sleeved top and something more substantial than open sandals. I felt quite uplifted when I discovered there were at least a dozen other writers in the same predicament!<br />6. Writers don't always carry pens. I couldn't quite believe this until I was asked by someone if they could borrow my pen - and guess what - I didn't have one!<br />7. Writers tell fascinating stories and then forget (a) what time of day it is, (b) what course they are supposed to be on, and (c) what their husband's name is<br />8. Writing is classless, ageless and some writers are very witty and funny indeed (I'm not one of them)<br />9. Published, successful writers make it all seem so easy - and it's really not!<br />10. Writers take their shoes off under tables.<br />11. Writers are all very nice people and make friends easily<br />12. Writers, without exception, display varying degrees of contempt for numbers and can't count to save their lives. (Oh dear, I have twelve points - well, never mind - it's near enough).Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-84271239962989020282009-07-09T18:37:00.004+01:002009-11-06T05:37:30.962+00:00UpdateI've posted on 'Cutting it Fine' for those fellow writers who are members. I can't quite make up my mind whether I am pleased with my agent's comments or a really despondent. Still - at least she thinks the Cuckoo is a 'jolly good story'. So that can't be bad.<br /><br />I'd just like to know who makes up all these rules about genre.<br /><br />Byesie bye for now. Still, it's all part of being a writer, isn't it. No pain, no gain!Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-74626172436297669822009-06-23T08:44:00.004+01:002009-07-06T21:10:16.033+01:00It's a Funny Old WorldI'm back in the world of the unpublished blogger after a hectic six weeks or so, when the day job has seriously got in the way of just about everything. Over this period I haven't had the time to do any serious writing, let alone eat a proper meal. I've really missed it after the crazy month when I went a bit hyperactive with my writing and wrote an entire novel with a meticulous obsession usually attributable to some of the lovely autistic children in my daughter's school!<br /><br />Trying to grab the odd hour to write during this busy time was like scratching the type of itch that hurts when you scratch it, and so you have to stop because you know you'll make the itchy spot sore and the itch will intensify.<br /><br />Just as the day job was calming down a little, I got a call from Gerry at The Writers' Holiday, where I am spending a blissful week at the end of July. I had planned to follow the course 'Plotting and Coursing your Novel' but it was oversubscribed. 'Would you consider the Advanced Novel Writing course,' he enquired, 'if you have a finished novel to submit?'<br /><br />This was just under a week ago. There was just a teeny, tiny amount of work to do before I submitted the first 50 pages and the last 10 pages of a finished novel. Just a brief little list of characters, and a chapter breakdown, scene by scene. I had time, according to Gerry. There was nothing to worry about. (What is it about a soothing Welsh lilt?)<br /><br />'Fine,' I said, biting my lip at the little white lie. Advanced Novel Writing! Scary, scary!<br /><br />Bloomin' 'eck. It was like trying to squash an extremely grubby super king-sized duvet into a washing machine. Just as I got one bit under control, another bit popped out! I eventually managed to come up with something reasonably respectable to submit to Marina Oliver, the course tutor, but in the process the duvet disintegrated in the wash and came out full of holes.<br /><br />A few months ago I had thought the second book in the trilogy, 'Melody of Raindrops', was reasonably OK and wouldn't need much work. Ooo-er! I think I've just realised the wisdom of leaving a manuscript alone for a while and then going back to it. These published writers know what they're on about, after all. Still - at least I'll have some holes to patch in Wales!<br /><br />On another note if I was a dog I'd be a lumbering, gentle St Bernard. The scene I have in my mind is this huge, clumsy dog digging up a perfectly matured bone when suddenly this lean whippet-like Jack Russell tears up behind him and snatches it out from under his nose just as he is about to enjoy the fruits of his labours and patience.<br /><br />Fellow writers - I will reveal all on 16th July when we meet up. Damned plagiarists, they are. All of 'em!Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-19697521852021133302009-05-12T06:24:00.004+01:002009-11-06T05:29:52.950+00:00Redundant Words from the Cuckoo's NestLast week, I finally confessed to J that I had completed another book and the response was that she wanted me to send it to her straight away. I suspect it might need quite a bit more work on it before she gives me a verdict on whether or not it is good enough to send out to publishers. But hang on - 'The White Cuckoo' was a just masochistic tool to oil my typing fingers and knock the rust out of my synapses, so anything more than a sympathetic, slightly worried smile in my direction from her will be a bonus.<br /><br />Now the nail-biting starts all over again.<br /><br />After contacting J about 'Cuckoo' she gave me some quite exciting news on 'Sunlight' but I'm not counting my chickens and all that (ha ha) until they start to hatch.<br /><br />Anyway I now find myself looking at the aftermath of the Cuckoo's parasitic behaviour, because I have almost 40k redundant words. I started a novel 'Doubled Lives' over a year ago, but abandoned it because it was so dull, but one of the characters was really strong and I knew I just had to use her now I had created her. I really liked the character, but hated the novel, so I abandoned the novel, but kept the character.<br /><br />I then had an idea - a bad one as it turned out because it didn't really work - of telling two stories in alternate chapters, set in different times. I started 'Going Back' using two of the characters from 'Doubled Lives' in one of the story strands. Something still wasn't right, though. I just knew it in my bones - even though I was spending some very enjoyable time in the local library researching the archaeology of the area - interesting but completely off piste!<br /><br />Then came the conversation with my uncle about the premature baby, and the visit to the Natural History museum late last year when I eavesdropped a conversation in the queue in the restaurant. The idea for 'Cuckoo' was sown. It wasn't long before my strong-willed character was tapping on my brain, wanting to be let in. She'd brought an odd assortment of friends and a couple of relatives with her. They are a right motley lot, I can tell you! (I really do hope you'll all get to meet them one day.)<br /><br />I reworked the original idea of two stories in one and the whole thing just came together in one fantastic explosion of light and colour (or a damp squib, depending on what my agent thinks).<br /><br />I've now got nearly 40k words worth of broken sentences, paragraphs, sights, sounds, smells and other bits and bobs that are left from 'Doubled Lives' and 'Going Back'.<br /><br />I suspect they are just flotsam. What a flaming waste!<br /><br />Any ideas as to what I can do with them?Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-70362463674746900812009-05-06T21:48:00.004+01:002009-05-07T04:40:19.495+01:00The Very Scary BitYesterday, after thoughtful help from hubby with the copying etc., I sent out my manuscript to my three remaining readers, Emily and Katie having had a sneak preview.<br /><br />I have broken some rules.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">Rule No. 1: A reader should not be a close member of the family</span><br /><br />The wisdom behind this is that they won't want to upset the writer, so will pin a happy smile on their face and pretend it was wonderful. Well, let me introduce my daughter to you all. Emily - the Queen of the Straight Talkers and very much her undiplomatic father's daughter. She is also spending lots of time pretending to be a cow at the moment (no, not a 'cow' a cow as in a milk), so needs something to do while my baby granddaughter thinks she actually is one.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">Rule No. 2: A reader should actually like reading</span><br /><br />Emily's never been much of a reader. When she was six/seven she was such a little perfectionist (again like her father) she wouldn't try anything unless she knew she could do it. Reading out loud was her worst nightmare. Enter scary teacher who forced her to do it in front of whole class even though she cried real tears. Result: one little girl who started out quite liking to read to herself quietly, but ended up at the age of seven being so scared of not being able to read out loud it put her right off.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">Rule No. 3: A reader should not be a teacher (broke that one twice)</span><br /><br />Enter very nice teacher who understood perfectly what poor little seven/eight-year old Emily was going through and made her laugh with Roald Dahl and Michael Rosen. (I don't think I ever thanked you for that, N, did I?) N is also one of my readers and I'm really grateful to her. She's a colleague of Emily's, although they teach in different schools, and that's how I've ended up with two teachers.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">Rule No. 4: A reader of women's fiction should be a woman</span><br /><br />But he's my best buddy and makes me nice cups of tea on a Thursday lunchtime and really doesn't notice if my hair is a mess or I've just taken my shoes off and put my feet up on his sofa without realising.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">Rule No. 5: A reader should not be, just possibly, the cleverest person in the whole world with an IQ of about 200</span><br /><br />But he knows what long words mean and can read (some) Hebrew and other clever languages like Latin and Greek. He does the cryptic crossword in the Guardian every day. Okay - I know 'The White Cuckoo' will be like Janet and John compared to the literary stuff he's usually got his nose in, but A's a bloke and there are blokes in my novel.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">Rule No. 6: Readers should not be your daughter-in-law to be<br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Okay. Okay! I know. I know. She might hold it against me and tell my future grandchildren what a nutcase their granny is to even think she just might get published. But then again, I could earn lots of Brownie points and be a fab mother-in-law for trusting her with my precious manuscript. Not so daft after all, am I?</span></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rule No. 7: Readers should not be a work colleague<br /><br /></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Well, H did a good job with Novel No. 1 didn't she? And M did offer!</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 0);">She's such a scatterbrain, though, I hope she doesn't leave it on the bus or anything.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br />So now it's being read by five people. This has got to be the worst bit of all. It is far, far worse than knowing that total strangers are reading your work.<br /><br />Once I've got all the comments back I'll do another complete edit, or rewrite if necessary, and then send it to my agent.<br /><br /><br /></span></span>Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-20518014299976113272009-05-03T05:56:00.002+01:002009-05-03T06:36:17.890+01:00The written novelGood morning.<br /><br />It is done. I actually put the final full stop on the page at 5.45 pm on Saturday, but that wasn't the end of the first draft, because I always edit the previous session.<br /><br />I finished editing yesterday's work just twenty minutes ago at 5.55 am. I then made a cup of tea, sat in the dawn sunshine in my garden and listened to the dawn chorus. (We live about a hundred yards away from a spinney - so the noise was actually quite deafening.) I was joined in my garden by a pair of collared doves, a finch of some sort, a blackbird and some starlings. Did I imagine it, but did they line up on my fence in a sort of avian fanfare in tribute to The White Cuckoo?<br /><br />It's like pure, white fragrant-smelling linen - just the thing to place in your bottom drawer. It's a story to lift your heart. There is not a single ounce of grittiness; there are no (bad) swear words; no bawdy sex scenes. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry, sometimes at the same time. There is too much of me in it. I have exposed my soul.<br /><br />Will a publisher want it? I don't honestly know - I doubt it. It's probably too simple and honest. But I know I needed to write it like a drowning man needs a lifeline.<br /><br />There is a lesson for all of you here. I almost lost something so fundamentally a part of me because of this dream we all chase that is 'publication'. Okay - I know I have an agent, and I'm grateful for that but never, ever again am I going to let anything get in the way of writing just for the pure enjoyment of it. The pressure suffocated the words in my head before they could reach my fingers. It made me sterile and made me think too much about what I was writing.<br /><br />Full stop. The end.<br />RIP The White Cuckoo - 4th April 2009 to 3rd May 2009.<br /><br />(PS - final word count 96,361 if anyone's interested)Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-10606536214720304272009-05-02T07:12:00.002+01:002009-05-02T07:25:56.484+01:00The finishing of a novelRighty ho!<br /><br />This is yesterday's word count.<br /><br />End of Thursday's session: 77,855<br />End of Friday's session: 86,068 (blimey - a palindrome no less!)<br />Total words: 8,193<br />Time spent writing/editing previous session's work : 7 hrs (give or take a few minutes)<br />Average words written and edited per hour: 1,197<br /><br />Now. I must make a conscious effort not to rush the remaining story in an effort to finish the book. It's a bit like when I'm knitting and running out of wool. I knit faster to make the wool last to the end of the row and usually end up ruining the pattern because I'm knitting too fast and not paying attention to the instructions.<br /><br />Note to self. It is not possible to run out of words. Don't rush Annie, don't rush!Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124483327855492998.post-69379522595158627612009-04-30T20:21:00.004+01:002009-04-30T20:55:49.650+01:00The Writing of 'The White Cuckoo'I've taken two days annual leave to tag onto the bank holiday weekend so that I can get this novel completed by the end of Sunday (3rd May). <br /><br />I'm expecting the first draft to come out at about 95-100k words, but it might be a little more or a little less.<br /><br />Well, I'm about to hang up my computer mouse at the end of a solid day's writing. It's now 8.20 pm and I've been writing since 10.30 am, with about a couple of hours off at lunchtime and then time off to cook tea, etc and do the domestic bit.<br /><br />At the beginning of this session today I'd completed just shy of 70k words and my word count now stands at 77,855 words.<br /><br />I hit a small problem though. Yesterday, my ornithological adviser (thank you, councillor - you know who you are if you read this blog) informed me that the species of cuckoo that the entire book is based upon has never been seen in the British Isles. It is native of South Africa, India and the southern hemisphere.<br /><br />I was gutted. I'd been putting all my eggs in one basket and the white cuckoo now appeared to be a white elephant.<br /><br />Isn't it funny how things happen? I've changed the plot ever so slightly to accommodate the elusive Jacobin Cuckoo's very inconsiderate migratory habits and it's now woven a very nice sparkly thread through the entire tapestry of my novel.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">My targets:</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Tomorrow (1st May): 85k words</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Saturday (2nd May): 92k words</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Sometime on Sunday (3rd May): Enter the final full stop with fanfare and a theatrical flourish of the hand.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Monday: I'm having a day off!</span>Annieyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13466245069641820781noreply@blogger.com10